霧之戀

Monday, February 1, 2010

This is Part One of a series I'm planning to dedicate to the late HK singer/songwriter Danny Pak Keung Chan (陳百強). Danny was one of HK's most talented composers and artists during the 1980's who sadly passed away on the 25th October, 1993. Although 16 years have elapsed, HK people are nonetheless very proud of him, and his music continues to live with us til eternity.

16 years after his death, RTHK has awarded him with the "Golden Needle Award" (金針獎) at the 32rd RTHK Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards ceremony (30th January, 2010).

(Image from Annie Jin's Blog, Special Thanks to Annie)

He is a symbol of HK popular music in the 80's, but his life was a tragedy. During his early years, Danny showed an intense passion for music, he was very good at playing the keyboard. He was high school classmates with the famous HK lyricist/songwriter Andrew Manchung Lam (林敏驄). After returning to HK from study in the US, he immediately showed his talent by writing and performing his song "The Rocky Road". In 1978 he composed another song - "The Sunrise", which won him First Prize at the Yamaha Keyboard Competition.

In 1979, Danny began his music career at EMI Records. In this early period, he worked close by with musicians like Eddie Man-Hoi Chiu (趙文海), Kenneth Chan (陳德堅), Cheng Kwok Kong (鄭國江) while writing most songs by himself.

His earlier songs combine youthful energy with tinges of melancholy, it can be seen that he intended to express his inner emotions through his compositions.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Can't really describe how much I love this song, especially when I listen to it at night, so much feelings... The song is sung by Cally Kwong (鄺美雲) who was second runner-up for Miss HK in 1982, she was a quite popular singer in the 80's to early 90's before becoming a successful businesswoman. Her voice is smooth and feminine, often emanating a unique sense of beauty, hence her songs are mostly emotional ballads. Here's what she looked like at the peak of her career, quite pretty la!

This song "夜已深" ("Deep Into The Night") appeared in her 1991 album "親近我" ("Come Close To Me", DMI Records) which was produced by Alvin Kwok (郭小霖), a famously talented artist-composer-producer in HK. The song was co-written by Alvin Kwok and Dean Richie, lyrics written by Poon Wai Yuen (潘偉源) and arrangement by Joey Villanueva. Great musicians + great lyricist = masterpiece, enough said.

Apart from this song, my other favourites from this album include: "親近我", "當你抱著我想哭", "思想撲火Ampin Mix", "I Don't Wanna Wait For Love", "愛吧!".

Friday, October 9, 2009

Imeem's been so slack about the copyright shit that I almost gave up this blog, but in the end thanks to a HK website Xuite which still provides full-length songs, I think I should continue writing. Xuite doesn't have as many songs as Imeem does, but still, it'll grow as Chinese song lovers gradually switch from Imeem.

For today I'll talk a bit about one of my favourite HK musicians, Mr. Tony (Antonio) Arevalo Jr (Chinese name 盧東尼, or otherwise known as Tony A). Tony is an outstanding Filipino musician who worked for HK pop music for over 20 or so years. He is a brilliant composer, arranger, and keyboard performer who was responsible for tonnes of the most classic hit songs in HK music history.

Tony came from a musical family, and from his 20's began working for artists like Sam Hui and Teresa Teng. Into the 80's, Tony worked mainly for Polygram Records, and during that time almost every pop star performed his musical compositions. If you are familiar with these names: Alan Tam, Priscilla Chan, Michael Kwan, Kenny Bee, the Wynners, Leslie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Shirley Kwan, Terence Choi, Vivian Chow, Vivian Lai, Winnie Lau etc, yes, many of their hit songs came from Tony!!

Tony migrated to Canada during mid-1990, continuing his musical life there as an elite keyboard performer. Tony's name shall never be forgotten in HK music history. I sincerely wish Tony and his family well and happy, you are always one of my favourite musicians.

Some very famous songs by Tony A I love very much!

"Happy Are Those In Love" ("難得有情人") Performed by Shirley Kwan (關淑怡), Music & Arrangement by Tony A, Lyrics by Jolland Chan (向雪懷)..........OMG Shirley was so SEXY and pretty back then.......LOL

"Sorry, But I Love You" ("對不起我愛妳") Performed by Leon Lai (黎明), Music & Arrangement by Tony A, Lyrics by Jolland Chan (向雪懷)

"Continue Again Tomorrow" ("明天仍要繼續") Performed by Alan Tam (譚詠麟), Music & Arrangement by Tony A, Lyrics by Jolland Chan (向雪懷)

Friday, August 7, 2009

Haven't been here for centuries, this blog almost rotted..lol =) but excuse me, this is suppose to be a HK music blog, but stupid imeem only lets music play for 30 secs when embeded in external blog sites, which sux like shit I should say! What the hell is the point of me wasting all that time writing stuff when people merely can hear a 30 sec snippet of each song?! bloody ridiculous..

Anyway, back to the point. During my stay in HK early July I again visited HK Records, HMV and MongKok's 信和中心 for CDs. Fortunately for me, Universal Records made a further 40 "Back to Black" (環球復黑王) albums this year, enabling me to collect some more of my fav albums. Here's what I've bought from this CD hunt!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Now I've come to bearing the brunt of Sydney's shortened daylight hours as winter arrives. During summer, the sun doesn't set until half past 8, but now after 5 the sky's pitch black. On the way back from uni or work, I feel more tired when the sun sets so early, exacerbated by quite cool evening winds and the hustle of commuters. How I wish I could live in a tropical place where it's summer all year around, as I dread cold weather more than anyone else on Earth!

The song "黃昏都市人" ("Evening City-Siders") sung by the pop trio Grasshoppers (草蜢) is the perfect song for this time of year. The trio is comprised of Edmond So (蘇志威), Calvin Choi (蔡一智), Remus Choi (蔡一傑) and was founded in 1985. They won the appreciation of Anita Mui (梅艷芳), whereupon they appeared as dancers and background chorus for several of Anita's songs. They released their first album under Polygram Records in 1988 and have enjoyed wide popularity in HK and SE Asia ever since. Grasshoppers is one of HK's most long-lasting pop music groups, and more importantly, the members can all compose music as well as writing lyrics.

"黃昏都市人" was composed by Calvin Choi (蔡一智), lyrics by famous HK lyricist Jolland Chan (向雪懷), music arranged by Andrew Tuason (杜自持). The song is light jazz, mellow and romantic like a city at night. Melody is very well written, arrangement by Mr. Tuason is simply divine....especially the sax solo, jazzy keyboards and drums! It's a song which you will love after listening once.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Uni's been so extremely busy that I haven't updated here for AGES....well, some of the work's out of the way now, thank goodness!! First topic for May, I've decided to talk about one of Cantopop's most important musicians, one of my favourites. His name is Alan Tsui (徐日勤), and this was what he looked like in the 80's (when producing the song "未唱的歌" which was mentioned earlier).

Alan, along with Dominic Chow (introduced earlier) and Andrew Tuason (杜自持), were three most outstanding students of Cantopop godfather Joseph Koo. He was an excellent composer, arranger, conductor, and producer who played a very significant role in the 80-90's HK music scene. While Dominic specialised in techno-music, and Andrew in R&B and jazz, Alan focused himself more on general pop, mainly heart-warming (at times heart-breaking) ballads.

Alan was best known for his perfect collaboration with Danny Chan (陳百強), but with other artists he produced many many great songs too. His father was also a renowned jazz pianist who was friends with Joseph Koo. Personal life wise, like most musicians he likes to keep a very low profile, but it is known that he had been involved in relationships with: Dorothy Yu (余綺霞) and Fennie Yuen (袁潔瑩).... thanks again to Annie for providing this information =)

Back to music-related stuff, here are some great songs Alan wrote (apart from "未唱的歌"). There are heaps more, but we do have limited space here.....